Amazon is planning a LOTR television series apparently.

Bad idea.

Who can even think this is a good idea

Preach, you want you to think back on what happened with The Hobbit movie. Yes, there is a lot to LotR, but its not impossible to overbloat anything. Let's face facts here. We have no reason to be optimistic in light of the Hobbit movies.

Yeah, but can you say LotR is in good hands with Warner Bros. They were the ones who made Jackson and Del Toro turn it into a trilogy.

It won't get the right cast and crew. No one working at WB cares enough. They just see money. The property is currently in the hands of a very dispassionate studio that makes decisions based only on demographics and focus groups. They don't give a crap about the artistry the way the people who made the original LotR trilogy did.

"Considering how successful and well made the LOTR movies were made, I have plenty of reason to be optimistic. A lot of movies have become successful tv shows."
That's the past. And with WB's current track record of crap, with "It" being pretty much the only exception, this looks very bleak. And you know they won't honor Tolkien's themes and beliefs.

It's officially happening and it's a prequel?

I just came here to post about this subject, but I see I was beat to it.

Yes, I share others' hopes that it's done well, or at least not turned into an HBO hipster-like "dark drama". But even if it turns out bad, at least we have Peter Jackson's movies; we shall see.